J.D. Tippit: The Other Life Oswald Claimed

The images from Dallas on this date in 1963 fade incrementally with each passing year. Yet, if you are an American of a certain age, they can still be conjured up:

The faces of the Dealey Plaza crowd turning instantly from happy to horrified; the mortally wounded president lurching forward in his convertible; the protective reaction of the first lady in her suddenly blood-spattered pink dress; the rush of the motorcade toward the hospital; the stunned vice president taking the oath of office aboard Air Force One; the shell-shocked attorney general who had now lost both of his older brothers; and the sad realization of an entire nation that two small children back in Washington would never see their father again.

But Jacqueline Kennedy was only one of two women widowed in Dallas that day. Caroline Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr. were just two of five children left to grow up without a father. Often overlooked when the JFK assassination is commemorated each year is that other bereaved family.